Reviewed by John Irvine

As a composer, Elgar was largely self-taught and although his music is regarded as quintessentially English, there is no influence of the nationalist folk song school that was gaining ground at the turn of the century, the school epitomised by Vaughan Williams. In fact, Elgar's music is more Germanic than English in a lot of ways: he admired Wagner and Mahler, for example, and echoes of Wagner's "Parsifal" can be heard in "Gerontius". Although Elgar was to write several oratorios, "The Dream Of Gerontius" is regarded as his major choral work. It is two parts: the first dealing with the death of Gerontius, the second the soul's progression from limbo (!) through to his meeting with God, guided by an angel. The premier in 1900 was a disaster: the choir was under-rehearsed with a stand-in conductor and the piece went beyond the amateur standards of the day. It is only in retrospect that this piece has found its place in the canon of great choral works. It is often presumed that Gerontius expressed Elgar's Catholicism. Perhaps it was an attempt by him to rekindle the faith of his youth. In any event it seems that privately he blamed God for the disastrous first performance and disappointing reception of his work, and his faith deteriorated throughout his life until he had no belief in any kind of afterlife at all. Certainly the death of his wife in 1920 put a stop to his creativity and he seems to have spent the rest of his life in the depths of depression. Notwithstanding the above, for many people "Gerontius" is a deeply moving spiritual work. The recording for budget label Naxos combines the strong performances of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with the strange acoustics of the recording venue - the Poole Arts Centre - where the echo on the soloists' voices suggests that they were recorded at the bottom of a very deep and dark well. Perhaps this was deliberate, suggesting the precarious position of Gerontius' soul before its journey through purgatory.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

Interested in reviewing music? Find out more here.